Safe as Houses
by Oracle Glass
Summary: Written for the Be Compromised 2015 Secret Santa. Some minor editing and cleanup has occurred. (Why does it always take me so long to spot the typos?) Prompt: Summary/Prompt Used: 1) Tell me about their safe houses, bolt-holes, private off-the-grid sanctuaries, what have you, that they both still keep around the world. Where are they, exactly? How long have they known each other b


"I'm going to take that selfie stick and shove it up his ass," hissed Natasha, shifting to tuck her arm more firmly around Clint's waist and taking more of his weight on her shoulder.

The vendor, unaware of the danger he was in, fortunately veered off to target a group of women chattering in Swedish and towing wheeled suitcases almost as large as they were. Natasha spared a thought to pity them, heedless as they apparently were of the innumerable bridges that lay between them and their hotel. Getting to the train station, that was easy. Getting to your typical Venetian hotel required strong thigh muscles and the foresight to put your stuff in a backpack.

Then again, she had to lug however many lbs of corn-fed Midwesterner over those same bridges, and Clint wasn't doing a great job of walking in a straight line, let alone keeping his own legs under him. Her arm around his waist had nudged his shirt upwards, so that her forearm was pressed against his skin. It wasn't truly diagnostic, but the clamminess she thought she detected was starting to worry her.

"That's it," she grunted, and veered to the right and let Clint sag downwards to one of the steps in front of the train station. He cracked an eyelid but made no protest as she parked him and pulled out a cheap flip-phone. Her fancy Stark gadget was lying at the bottom of the Adriatic with a bullet hole in it. She had been the one to shoot it before throwing it overboard. God knows what tracking software the thing had been outfitted with, given the circumstances they had just escaped.

One phone call to the driver of a water taxi (fortunately not currently occupied ferrying art world luminaries around for the Biennale) and she was pulling Clint to his feet again. He made a gutteral noise of protest, but managed to teeter into the boat with Natasha and the driver's assistance.

"Drunk?" asked the driver, a knowledgeable look in his eyes.

"Reaction to a medication," snapped Natasha.

It was technically true. In a triumph of overkill, Clint had not only been shot, but a lab-coated flunky had managed to jab a syringe of something into Clint's shoulder. That was where the flunky's courage had ended, and Natasha had only to mildly suggest something about sharp knives and eyeballs before an antidote was produced.

"It doesn't always work, though," he said, stuttering under Natasha's gimlet stare. "Or not work fast, I mean. He probably won't die" (and here he he did a full-body flinch as Natasha twitched) "but he could. You should probably get him to a hospital. IV fluids, rest..."

"I'm so glad you've picked now to be helpful," said Natasha, and punched him in the face.

The water taxi roared to life, nipped under the nose of a lurching vaporetto, and followed the curves of the Grand Canal for a few minutes before turning into a smaller side canal and then a few progressively smaller ones after. The ducking of heads under low bridges was required twice.

The building they tied up to was definitely not on the tourist trail, although two teenaged boys, American judging by their shorts, had apparently taken the popular advice to lose yourself on the island's back roads. They looked over at the taxi before putting their noses back into their Lonely Planets and eventually deciding on one of the three available bridges away.

The water taxi driver gave Natasha a sideways glance as he braced himself and heaved Clint off the boat and into her arms. Clearly, the fact that the building looked like it was about to crumble into the green water that lapped around it was triggering some curiosity, and the addition in his head was adding up to something Natasha didn't like.

"He's working on an installation piece," she said, putting an "oh-very-well" note of resignation in her voice. "You'll probably read about it in the New York Times. He's going to be the next hot star at the auctions, if I can keep him alive to keep working."

She glared at Clint, the very picture of an aggrieved personal assistant.

"Ahhh," the driver said, nodding sagely, and handed over his card. "He will need personal transport for future Biennales, then. Please let him know that I am very discreet and that I understand the artistic temperament."

Natasha leaned Clint against the doorway of the building, trying to prop him up so that he didn't slide into the murky water at his first opportunity. A thumb pressed against a small panel that looked like yet another one of Venice's winged lions caused a series of retractions and a keypad slid into view. Natasha punched in a string of numbers and the door slid noiselessly open. She retrieved her slumping partner and dragged him in as it closed behind them.

Inside, she thanked her own good instincts that had arranged the installation of a small elevator built into the stairwell. She dumped Clint into it, punched the button, and then walked up the three flights of stairs to meet it. She decanted Clint from the interior and walked him...was it her imagination or was he even less steady on his feet? … into a well-appointed little apartment. As they passed through the living room, Clint staggered, but Natasha still had him in a firm grip and steadied him until they reached another large room kitted out with a few bunkbeds, some chairs, a table, and most importantly at this particular moment, a shelf full of medical supplies.

With a briskness that indicated that this wasn't her first time at this particular rodeo, she wrestled him onto a lower bunk, rolled him over, and jabbed a syringe full of antibiotics into his ass. The fact that he wasn't coherent enough to make a bawdy suggestion was more worrisome than the inability to walk, really. She frowned, then cleaned and stapled his gunshot wound - a through-and-through, no organs compromised, and he wasn't pissing blood, which was a hopeful sign. Finally, she hooked him up to an IV of supportive fluids just as the flunky had advised. Just because the man was an employee of a supervillain didn't mean he wasn't right about some things.

A quick shower, and then she went into the kitchen, plugged in the tiny refrigerator, and inventoried the spartan contents of the cupboards. Like all of her safehouses, there were a few packages of shelf-stable meals that would do in a pinch, but she was confident enough that nobody had followed them that she felt comfortable grocery shopping.

After all, she had blown up all the other boats in the vicinity.

Clint's mouth was sticky and there was a weird throbbing pain somewhere in his body but he couldn't focus enough to figure out where it was coming from. He made an inarticulate noise and thrashed a little until he realized his right arm was tethered to an IV that dangled above him. Thankfully before he pulled the IV out, Natasha heard the muffled thumping and walked in to check on him.

"Stay still, idiot. You're a mess."

Clint settled back against the bed and scratched his unshaven jaw. "I feel like something that crawled out from under a rock."

"Well, that's pretty much what you look like, so the universe is in balance. Hang on, I have food."

She left the room and then returned carrying a tray with a milky coffee, two scrambled eggs, and a brioche. Clint wolfed it down while she sipped a coffee of her own, settling into a weird little curvy red chair that indicated they were within range of an Ikea.

"How long have I…?"

"Two days. You've been awake for parts of it, but I imagine it's pretty blurry. I gave you the good pain meds."

"Where are we? This isn't a SHIELD safehouse."

"Venice. And no, this isn't SHIELD, this is one of mine. After what happened on the boat, I decided that it was time to go off the books for a bit."

"Uh…"

"You may have been too busy getting shot to notice. But I think some of our orders were corrupted by a non-SHIELD entity. Those guys on the boat knew we were coming, so I decided not to risk running to a SHIELD safehouse and having someone waiting there to shoot us in the face. Now that I'm a hundred percent sure we haven't been sighted, I'm going to contact May through some back channels and see if she can do some snooping around for me. In the meantime, I wanted to make sure you'd survive whatever that lab rat injected you with."

Clint's hand crept to the raised welt on his shoulder where the needle had gone in. "Am I…"

"The lab rat gave me the antidote. I only had to threaten him a little bit. He even suggested your ongoing treatment." She gestured to the IV. "I'm going to require you to stay in bed for a couple more days and then maybe I'll let you walk around the apartment. Maybe. You should be in a hospital but I don't know if we can risk it at the moment."

"I'm overwhelmed by your motherly clucking, Tasha. I'm a big boy, I can…"

"Right now you've got the look of a dead carp, and if you make me, I will strap you to the bed and tranq you."

"Kinky!"

She picked up his tray and swept out of the room majestically. Clint snuggled back down into his blankets and fell asleep, grinning.

She left him still sleeping and headed for the Piazza San Marco. It was a zoo of competing tour groups, solo tourists wandering with alternately beatific or irritated expressions, hawkers aggressively marketing selfie sticks, and the occasional man trundling a precariously loaded dolly to restock one of the cafes that ringed the square. She strolled casually over to the corner of the church, patted the porphory sculpture of the Tetrarchs with a fond touch, and leaned against the wall, pulling out a second burner flip phone that was part of the safehouse's supply. She dialed a phone number and when a recording answered, keyed in a long string of digits. Then she hung up and waited. A tour group pounced on the Tetrarchs. Pigeons approached her hopefully. Three different selfie stick vendors approached, equally hopefully. Finally, her phone rang.

"Natasha?"

"Hi, Melinda. I'm in a bind and I need you to check on something for me."

"They said you'd gone off the radar but nobody was sure if you and Hawkeye were dead or not. I figured not. But Coulson yelled at me for a while about it. Nobody else was around for him to vent at."

"We should maybe stay in limbo for a while, until we can find out why the guys on the ship were waiting for us."

Natasha heard May suck a breath in between her teeth. "Damnit. You both ok?"

"Clint's got a nice through-and-through but he'll be fine." Better to not mention the mystery drug until she was sure they could be brought in safely. Otherwise May would rush to get them brought in and if SHIELD's communications had been compromised...or god forbid, if there was a mole somewhere, it would be harder to keep things quiet.

"I'll start looking at who might have accessed your records. Might be internal, might be someone breaching us from the outside. This isn't a SHIELD line, though - are you guys not at a safehouse?"

"Didn't seem prudent to get to ground and find someone waiting for us."

"Ah, you're in your own little nest. Makes sense, although officially I have to scold you. So: tsk, tsk, bad agent."

Natasha smirked. "I accept my reprimand. Let Coulson know that both his favorite agents are mostly ok. Call me back in six hours."

"Done."

The line went dead. Natasha snapped the phone closed and stuffed it in her pocket. Time to grab a few quick groceries and make sure Clint hadn't pulled out his IV and climbed out onto the roof because he was bored.

As a matter of fact, Clint was bored, but the pain and an intermittent roiling case of vertigo had kept him from any acrobatics. Instead, he had slept deeply and woken up with a full bladder and a raging appetite. There was one of those rolling poles for the IV standing in a corner, so he stood up gingerly, rehooked the bag, and used the pole as a crutch while he explored the apartment.

The bathroom was tiny and it took him a while to figure out how to flush. What kind of sadist put a flush button onto the wall instead of on the toilet tank like God and Better Homes and Gardens intended? Scrubbing his hands, he stared into the mirror. He was hollow-cheeked and had bags under his eyes. A bruise was lifting on his cheekbone and although the stubble made him look like a degenerate, he decided to skip shaving until he felt a little more human. He found a fresh toothbrush and small tube of toothpaste and scrubbed until the sour taste was out of his mouth, then meandered out into the living room.

The ceilings were tall and wooden beams stenciled with gold flowers stretched across them. Natasha clearly had felt no hesitation about making her bolthole comfortable: a large plush sofa covered with embroidered pillows and a heavy blanket folded over one of the arms looked inviting. He wasn't ready to sit down yet, so he went to look at the bookshelf. Russian classics, unsurprising. A few Golden Age British mysteries, also unsurprising. Flannery O'Connor, a few cookbooks, and Lord of the Rings? Maybe a little surprising.

A small piece of celadon standing on a table next to the bookshelf, caught his eye. The piece was old, a small vase with elegant curves that the pale green glaze complemented perfectly. It was also familiar. He had given it to Natasha in Seoul, after a mission that had gone badly wrong and which she had saved through pure, balls-out grit. He had found it in an antique shop and given it to her with a grin, but the expression on her face as she lifted the lid of the box and saw what was inside had made the grin slide off his face. She had looked up and met his eyes, the two of them momentarily solemn, before she laughed and hugged him.

"It's gorgeous, Barton. Imagine, you having good taste. So unexpected!"

Seeing it here was like seeing an old friend in a crowd, and he touched it gently with one finger before his stomach growled, reminding him that his destination had been the kitchen.

The kitchen window looked out onto a canal where a boat bobbed gently at the end of the line that tethered it to a white and blue striped pole. A coil of fog was ebbing down over the rooftops, and the world looked like a fairyland. Venice, so goddamn picturesque that it might as well be Disneyland. A condom wrapper bobbed past in the canal, and he cheered up a bit.

He continued his explorations, poking through cupboards, turning his nose up at the MREs and noting that there was a distinct lack of highly sugared cereal. Disappointing. On the other hand, there were more surprises - where had Natasha gotten that ridiculous tea cozy in the shape of a chicken?

He opened the tiny fridge and found the rest of the eggs from breakfast, a pint of milk, and some cheese. The thought of cooking was too tiring, so he opted for sawing a slice of bread off the loaf on the counter and slathering it with butter. He ate it over the sink and then immediately made himself another one. Brushing off the crumbs, he headed back into the living room, laid down on the sofa, and, exhausted by all that activity, fell asleep again.

The smell of something delicious frying woke him up. He got up, groaning a little because of stiffened muscles, and went back into the kitchen. Natasha, otherwise sleek in tight black pants and shirt, wore an honest-to-god frilly apron over the lot of it, a big pinafore type that he hadn't seen since his mom back in the farmhouse in Iowa. Instead of the practical boots she favored, her feet were bare, and her hair was carelessly knotted back in a messy bun. She arched an eyebrow at him as he appeared in the doorway and flipped the cutlet sizzling in the pan.

"You're looking slightly less dead. Although you weren't supposed to be up and around yet."

"You're looking slightly more domestic. What's with the apron, Laura Ingalls Wilder?"

"It's a practical defense against grease. I like this top. And until I head back out tonight to talk with May, I'm pretending this is a vacation, which means I'd rather not spend it doing laundry."

"Hanging out near St. Mark's to make your calls?"

"I don't want anybody triangulating my signal and finding this place."

"And you're harder to spot on cameras by lurking amid the teeming hordes."

Natasha nodded. "Although it'll start to empty out soon, we're on the verge of the really cold weather. Might as well take advantage of the people while they're here."

"Why did you pick here for your safehouse?" Seeing her expression, he amended his question. "One of your safehouses? Still, why a tourist trap of a city?"

She shrugged, slid the cutlet onto a plate, and dropped another one into the oil. "Within shouting distance of some perpetual hotspots, access to an airport, trains, cruise ships, tiny little boats so you can slip off into the lagoon or up a river… Plus, everyone who lives or works here is so used to dealing with idiot tourists that you can pretty much hide in plain sight. Nobody notices you coming and going because nobody notices you at all. And also…"

She paused.

"I just really like it here. Better in the winter. The fog creeps in and it's lonely and beautiful."

"And lets you be extra-Russian and melancholy?"

That brought out a grin. "Maybe. Why, are your safehouses all in Vegas or above seedy bars?"

"Up until now, I've trusted the SHIELD ones. Haven't bothered with one of my own. That way I don't have to pick out more furniture."

"You'd have a place to put your lava lamp where Coulson won't make remarks about it."

"Point taken."

They lapsed into a companionable silence while Natasha finished cooking dinner. Generally when they were out in the field, things were either chaotic (people shooting at them) or boring (waiting around for people to shoot at them). Gunshot wound and mystery juice injection aside, this was peaceful. Clint sat at the kitchen table and indulged himself by watching her move, remembering that she had said something once about ballet training. He suddenly had a mental picture of her walking through Venice, poised elegantly at the top of a humpbacked bridge, the fog wreathing the brightness of her hair.

He shivered. He was used to thinking of Natasha as another part of him, the two of them so in-tune that Coulson used to joke about testing them for telepathy. It wasn't like him to be thinking of the way she looked, about her body in motion, her delicate features, her bare feet on the tile. But there wasn't another woman in his life like her.

Also, none of the other women in his life had saved his butt from certain death on a regular basis, which was also pretty great.

Natasha slid a plate in front of him and he blinked.

"Daydreaming?" she asked, sitting across from him and pouring him a very scant amount of wine.

"No, I just…" he stopped before he realized he had been about to confess some of what he was actually thinking. "Just a little woozy, I guess."

Clint admitting to feeling less than superhuman was surprising enough that Natasha stared at him over her glass of wine. "Maybe I should have strapped you down. I seem to recall telling you that you needed at least two days in bed. We still don't know that the antidote worked."

"No, I feel fine, really. I'm just a little tired and I'm having trouble keeping all this…" he gestured at the window and the living room "...at bay."

"Are you implying that you currently have the warm fuzzies and that it's creeping you out?"

"I...think so?"

Natasha put her wine glass down and laughed so hard she actually made a little snorting noise. Clint stared at her, eyes wide. When she finally recovered herself, wiping her eyes, she reached over and patted his hand on the table.

"I had no idea you were so terrified of domesticity, Barton. If we ever need one of my safehouses again, I'll make sure it's the one that's in the back of a broom closet in a Chicago warehouse. I can promise you that one has no lovely amenities and there's absolutely no view."

"Because...broom closet?"

She started laughing again.

Night was wearing on, and it was time to get back out and talk to May. She and Clint had whiled away a few hours after dinner sitting in the living room wallowing, as Natasha jokingly said, in more comfortable domesticity. She turned up the heat to ward off the chill in the air, and had stretched out with her feet up. She had been serious about treating this interlude like a vacation. You had to take your down time where you could, or you would lose your edge to exhaustion and anxiety.

Clint was generally good at waiting - a sniper's life was full of it - but underneath his drowsy conversation he seemed slightly on edge although in too much pain to do much about it. He was lying on the sofa with a blanket half-pulled over him, and eventually all the coziness (and the painkillers) had their way with him. Natasha had watched as his eyes closed and the muscles in his jaw started to relax. In the middle of a story about a contortionist and a snake charmer's favorite python, he had fallen asleep.

Natasha stood up, drew the blanket more securely over Clint's dozing form, and touched his cheek. Something about the look on his face earlier in the kitchen had made some unexpected emotion take up residence, but it would have to wait until she had more time to take it out and examine it. She shrugged on her jacket and headed out the door to call May again.

Despite the chill, most of the cafe orchestras were valiantly playing, and bundled-up tourists nursed their drinks at the outdoor tables, doing their best to get their money's worth. The square was a lot emptier than it had been that morning. Natasha walked a circuitous route through the arcade that ringed the plaza, found a corner with good sightlines and dialed May back.

The agent sounded strained when she answered the call, and the deep hum of jet engines was clearly audible over the line.

"No, it's not good news. There's definitely been some sort of infiltration. I'm leaving for Rijeka in ten."

"That's across the Adriatic from us. What did Phil find?"

"Enough to send me to check things out. It looks like a small group with stolen SHIELD tech, enough to pass themselves off as legit after they hacked into some comm channels. What they were trying to do when they attacked you is still unclear. Stay put. We don't know how deeply they've embedded themselves and you guys may be particular targets since you've been ambushed once already."

"I was just telling Clint I needed a vacation."

May's snort was clearly audible despite the rumble in the background.

"Sure, gunshots and safehouses make the perfect holiday. Go see a museum or something."

"We just might. Let me know what you find out."

"Phil first, you second. Promise." May cut the phone off.

Natasha turned off the phone, tucked it into her pocket and stared out across the piazza, thinking. The men on the boat had been hoping to kill her and Clint, and had come closer to it than most. But if you had a line into SHIELD, why waste making yourself visible by using all that intel on taking out a paltry two agents? Granted, if she and Clint had died, the moles might have remained underground. And having her and Clint off the playing field would make things easier for certain bad guys. But realistically, accomplishing the deaths of two agents didn't seem worth the possibility of being discovered.

She turned the situation over and over in her mind as she walked back to the apartment. Clint had found his way back into bed, and so she sat in the living room alone and nursed a glass of wine.

She and Clint had been en route to get eyes on a situation that had concerned SHIELD - a report of strange weapons that gave off a blue glow and seemed more powerful than known tech would account for. Fury was still trying to recruit Stark for that secret whatever thing he was trying to put together, but he did manage to confirm that Stark had no idea about the weapons, and that meant that whoever had developed them had managed to keep them off the radar of the small and very gossipy arms dealer circuit. So Fury had dispatched Delta to bring back samples of the weaponry and any information they could uncover on how and when it was developed.

If the moles and the possessors of these weird new weapons were one and the same, and if they were concerned about SHIELD getting a closer look at the tech, maybe they had felt threatened enough to attack instead of remaining hidden - a gamble, but one they may have felt they had to take. It seemed like a solid analysis, although Natasha hated speculating on such little evidence. Annoyed, she tossed back the rest of her wine and went to bed.

She awoke to Clint whistling. Fortunately for him, she refused to hit a guy with a bullet hole already in him, so she settled for glaring at him as she walked into the kitchen. He didn't seem to take it as the very real threat it was.

"Morning, 'Tasha. I feel a lot better." He stretched his arms over his head without a grimace of pain. "Plus, no second head, lycanthropy, or wings, which hopefully means I'm clear of whatever was in that injection."

"Shame about the wings, though."

He threw a brioche at her, which she neatly fielded. She sat down at the table, where he had assembled an assortment of butter and jams and cheeses, and put together a cheese and jam sandwich for herself.

"Since you're all chipper, you can come with me while I call May for a sit rep. And then maybe some hot chocolate."

"You spoil me."

"Not really. You're going to buy the hot chocolate."

May was unreachable, which worried Natasha. Clint was less concerned.

"She's probably still kicking somebody's ass, too busy to call in. Hot chocolate?"

Natasha led him to a small cafe in the Dosoduro, which had worked out an elegant balance between its sleek modern interior and the building's ancient exterior. It was filled with a mix of locals and savvy tourists, some of whom were having early lunches. Clint eyed a heaped plate of squid but the lure of chocolate won out. He was rewarded by the happy discovery that Venetian hot chocolate was more like thick chocolate pudding, and had to be stopped from getting thirds.

"You've got a chocolate mustache," said Natasha, handing him a napkin.

"We have to come back tomorrow. And the next day. I might move here. Maybe May will call us and tell us we have to stay here forever."

"You'd voluntarily move to a land that does not know of the tater tot casserole?"

"Good point. Maybe I could open a restaurant that caters exclusively to homesick Americans who just want a good tuna noodle hotdish."

"You're going to end up at the bottom of the canal, a victim of outraged gourmandes."

Clint waved the thought away.

"You love this place for its chilly winter beauty and there's nothing better than something warm and starchy when you're living in perpetual dampness. Perfect match, I think."

Natasha laughed as he got up and went to pay the bill. Despite the niggling worry in the back of her head about what May and her team might be encountering, she had to admit she was having a good time, which was not generally the result you got after being shot at, fleeing in a stolen boat, and going off the grid.

"Do you need to go back to bed? How are you feeling?"

"No, I'm good, actually. We can walk if you want. Or we can just stay here and eat lunch."

"Glutton. I need to walk off some of this chocolate."

As they left the cafe, Natasha took his arm. The feeling of her pressed up against him made his nerve ends light up, even if he was sure it was to complete the pose of lovers on a European vacation. He tried to stuff the thought back down but when she released his arm only to take his hand, he discovered that he was too scared to speak in case he'd break whatever spell had fallen over them.

The two of them ambled through the city, encountering dead ends, crossing bridges, nodding to the occasional fellow walker and passing several stalwart photographers who were toting camera bags and juggling lenses in order to capture the eerie gorgeousness of the city. From time to time, Natasha would stop and point out some detail on a building or relate a tidbit of Venetian history - she was really knowledgeable about the city. Clint's previous grumpiness about the otherworldly beauty of the place started to fade. It seemed like a proper tribute to Natasha, somehow, like the city existed to set her off. But then, no matter where in the world the two of them had ever been, the place became a frame for her. She was at the center of it all.

Natasha's hand was warm in his, and before he realized quite what he was doing, he had lifted it and kissed her knuckles lightly. She turned to him, her eyes surprised, before a smile flickered over her face. She stopped, and leaned against one of the carved marble wellheads that dotted the city, pulling him to face her. His arm was around her waist, and suddenly he was leaning in, and she was so close, her breath warm on his cheek...

Her cellphone rang shrilly, vibrating in her pocket.

If she hadn't felt the same immediate flush of anger, Clint's expression as her phone rang would have been priceless, but her first reaction was to say something very rude in every language she knew and then throw the phone into the canal. Instead, she answered the call while watching him stomp in a small circle, the very picture of frustration. May's voice on the line broke through her distraction.

"Natasha? They're gone. Cleaned out almost entirely, although we were able to recover enough information to know that they were aware you and Clint were coming and that it worried them. It looks like they were working with the same group that was making those unknown weapons you two were going to look into. Scratch that - not working with that group, part of the same group."

"I was starting to work some of that out myself. Any idea where they've gone to?"

"That's the problem. Most of them have vanished, but while we were starting to track their movements, we noted that they broke off a team of five people that obtained a ship and headed out to sea. You two jettisoned everything SHIELD related when you went to ground, right? Nothing they could use to track you somehow?"

"Everything went to the bottom of the ocean when I realized what was happening. There shouldn't be a way to trace us, unless…"

She froze, staring at Clint.

"Oh no."

Clint stared back at her, eyebrows raised.

"Natasha, what is it? Tell me."

"During the attack, Clint got injected with some mystery serum. I got the antidote and he's showing no side effects. But what if the injection wasn't to make him ill, but instead made him trackable somehow?"

"Something in his bloodstream? I'll get the lab guys on it. But if you're right, that means…"

"...that they're heading for us right now."

Clint was now standing close enough to hear Melinda. "You guys can't be serious." He stared at his hands as if he could look hard enough to see whatever might be swimming in his veins.

There was a babble of voices as May conferred with someone behind her. Her voice came through in snippets. "Do you think…? Yeah, really. Nanotech?"

She got back on the line with Natasha and Clint. "Tell your idiot partner that he's probably a walking antenna right now. I can be to you relatively quickly."

Natasha's brain had ticked over into planning mode. "How long until they get to Venice, May?"

"You're in Venice? You pick weird places for safehouses, Romanoff." She shouted the question behind her to one of her team members, and got back a quick reply. "Three hours, give or take about twenty minutes."

"Ok, listen. This is how it's going to play out."

Clint, still a little skeeved out at the idea that he was currently a human homing beacon, trotted behind Natasha as they headed back to the apartment. The gunshot wound ached with every step, but he gritted his teeth and ignored it, following Natasha closely as she threaded her way through the streets without hesitation. No more dead ends or bridges to nowhere now; they were moving through the city at a quick clip. And no objections about returning to the safehouse, because it was clear that it was no longer any such thing.

Back in the apartment, Natasha went directly to a heavy wooden armoire that stood in the corner of the living room. She slide aside a small piece of carving and pressed her finger to the print reader below, which clicked and opened obediently.

Inside, just as Clint expected, was a small arsenal. Flat drawers held a range of handguns; others contained a selection of knives and even a pair of brass knuckles. Several rifles, their scopes neatly sitting beside them, occupied a shelf. Natasha selected a pair of handguns and strapped on an ammunition pouch, then assembled a rifle and slung it over her shoulder. Finally, she slid open the bottommost drawer and stepped back so Clint could see inside.

It was a bow and quiver of arrows. Formerly his, he could tell by the wear marks - this was one of his practice weapons that was usually kept at a SHIELD range.

"You must really love me, 'Tash," he said, taking the quiver out of the drawer and checking on what arrows were included. "You always know just what I like. And don't think I'm not going to bring up what happened earlier once all this is done with."

She grinned at him. "I'm counting on you bringing something up. You ready to be the goat, Barton?"

"Dirty puns, Nat? I've never seen this side of you before. Well, that one time in São Paulo..."

"That wasn't a different side of me, that was my cover. I would never be seen in public in that swimsuit. This, though - this is a different side of me."

She was up next to him, her hand at the back of his neck. She drew him in tightly and kissed him, starting at his neck and traveling to trace his jawline before she found his mouth. He staggered, but she held him tightly for a long moment before releasing him.

"We'll continue this later, Barton. Please try to not get shot anymore, I need you intact."

Before he could say anything, she had opened the kitchen window and swung herself up onto the roof.

An innocuous-looking motorboat, once red but now a battered amalgamation of several old paint jobs, glided through the green water. The men on board might have been taken as fishermen at first glance, but a longer look might have revealed the military precision of their movements which belied the work-soiled clothing they wore. The boat had been taken at gunpoint from actual fishermen in Chiogga, and the clothing as well. The weaponry that each man carried, however, was entirely their own.

One of them, who seemed to be the leader of the small group, studied a window with binoculars.

"He's there," he said, grimly satisfied. "Sling on his arm, he was shot like they said he was and it looks like that arm is immobilized. No sign of the woman. Be ready, she's likely in the apartment. We haven't seen anyone leave."

In his binoculars, he could clearly see Clint sitting at the kitchen table, sipping from a mug with one hand. The man looked tired and his movements were slow. His other arm was heavily immobilized in a sling with lots of strapping. Maybe his collarbone had been broken, the man speculated. Five against two agents didn't sound good, but five against one agent and one with significant injuries made him a little happier.

Clint, unaware at how much his acting job was succeeding, turned his back on the window, ignoring the prickling sensation which came from knowing how exposed he was.

"You there, Nat?"

His earpiece crackled to life. "I'm here. They're dressed like fishermen or laborers, about 50 meters away. Watching you and practically dancing to see you in such bad shape."

Natasha shifted her weight slightly up on the rooftop where she was perched. A bit of a role reversal, but just because Clint was more temperamentally suited to be the sniper didn't mean she forgot all her own training. She watched, giving Clint updates as the boat edged closer, until they tied up at a building standing just opposite their own, across the tiny canal from the safehouse. A booted foot kicked in the door, and the men were inside with impressive quickness.

"Get ready, Barton."

"On it."

From the window opposite theirs, a small projectile arced silently into the kitchen window, blowing out the glass with a soft whump as it did so. It was followed immediately by a grappling hook that bit into the stone. Three men swung across, ready to engage with a wounded and surprised man before searching the apartment for the woman.

That was the plan. But the first man discovered, as he swung through the window, that a bullet had found its way into the meat of his upper arm and a second one into his thigh. Instead of spotting his target and shooting him in the head, he found himself crouching on the floor of the kitchen, crying out at the blood that was now soaking his secondhand clothing. The second man stumbled into him, and from the living room, an arrow whistled through the air and took him in the throat. He fell, dead almost instantly.

The third man saved himself from collapsing into the pile of humanity in front of him with an agile twist, and got to his feet with his gun drawn. Behind him, the remaining two members of the team followed him in, confused at how it had all gone wrong, but not yet panicked. They weren't wary enough, as it turned out. Behind them, Natasha slipped in from the roof, silent as a ghost. A gun butt to the temple dropped the man closest to the window, and a shot from a silenced pistol ruined his knee, ensuring he'd stay down.

The two remaining men looked at each other, then looked around. What they saw was the glint of light off a razor-sharp arrowhead aimed by a man who did not look like a wounded sitting duck. The remains of the sling lay at his feet. They also saw the cold circles of two gun barrels pointed at them by a woman who looked distinctly unamused. Simultaneously, they dropped their own guns and raised their hands.

"So I guess I'm just here to clean up after you two?"

Agent May strolled in, her own gun drawn but her posture relaxed. Behind her, four SHIELD operatives trotted in and formed a circle around the two captives. Clint immediately unnotched his arrow, tucked it back into his quiver, and rubbed his aching wound.

"Just in time, May. I'd have shot one of these guys just so I could put the bow down."

The two men had their hands ziptied behind them and were stood up to be marched out the door by May's team. Before they were even out of the kitchen, one of them shrugged free and turned to his companion. "Do it," he hissed.

They both bit down on something and shuddered, falling to the floor in a tangle of flailing legs. May sprang to the man on the floor that Natasha had kneecapped, but the froth on his mouth indicated he had done the same. May dropped him back to the ground in disgust.

"Damnit, suicide pills? You've got to be kidding me."

"That's old school," said Natasha dryly. "You don't usually get that kind of devotion in your average henchman these days." She got up from where she had crouched by one of the men, unconsciously wiping her hands on her thighs.

"Full cleanup," May barked to her team. "Sorry, Natasha - you just lost yourself a safehouse."

"I figured as much." Natasha sighed, then jogged into the other room. When Clint followed her there, she was putting the celadon vase into a little box. "I have to find a new spot for you, I guess," she said to it. "No more Venice. I really liked this place."

Clint slipped his arm around her waist. "Hey, I still need to start a safehouse of my own. Maybe a nice palazzo here - we can upgrade. Something with a giant chandelier and a private gondola."

Natasha leaned into his shoulder and exhaled, the tension of combat leaking away.

"As long as I get to do the decorating. I don't trust you not to do the whole thing in purple velvet and beer signs."

Behind them, May watched, her eyebrow raised. So that was the way the wind was blowing, hmm? Well, it was none of her business, although Phil would be mad if she didn't mention it. She finished giving orders on cleaning out the apartment, until nobody would ever know what this place had been.

Two months later, Natasha found herself once more in a beautiful and melancholy winter setting.

The snow was falling steadily on the roof of the old farmhouse, and Clint got up to put another log on the fire.

Natasha, wrapped in an oversized sweater and fuzzy socks, murmured sleepily from the sofa, "I still don't know how you managed this, Barton."

"Hey, you never really got your vacation. It doesn't count if you have to engage in a gun battle in the middle of your European holiday. And this may not be Venice, but I figure it's high enough on the coziness factor to make you happy."

"Still, a New England farmhouse in the middle of a picturesque snowstorm...you get points for this."

She waited until he sat back down, and then curled back up against him, her hand sliding under his sweater. He jumped. "Cold hands! Ack, Tasha, cold hands!"

"Don't be such a baby. Besides, I can warm them up...like this…"

"I...well in that case...oh, god…"

Natasha laughed and stretched to kiss him, her hand delving lower. He turned to scoop her into his lap, his gunshot healed enough now that it didn't even twinge as he pulled her on top of him. She leaned forward and caught him in an even deeper kiss, biting his lower lip as her hips rocked against his. One of his hands was caught in her hair, the other pressing at the small of her back, as if with enough intent, the two of them could fuse together.

She pushed impatiently at his shirt and wrestled it up and over his head. He didn't even have time to complain about the cold air because she was pressed into him again, her hands exploring the muscles of his shoulders and sliding down to grab his biceps. In exchange, he did his own fumbling attempt to remove her sweater, and finally she let go of him and helped, sliding it off in a cloud of crackling static. With strands of hair standing up all over her head in a wild cloud, she paused for one long moment above him, and he lost his breath at how beautiful she was. Then she swooped down like a diving bird and their mouths met again.

What followed would have won no points for elegance. They were too hungry for each other to be delicate, and the pair of pants Clint was wearing would, as it turned out, have to be thrown away when all was said and done. Clint won more points from Natasha for ensuring that a very thick oriental carpet covered the wide plank floor in front of the fireplace, because that's where the two of them wound up after first kicking the coffee table out of the way. Clint lay with his head thrown back, his neck exposed while Natasha rode above him, their arms interlocked as her hips moved in slow circles. His hands slid up to caress her breasts, his calloused thumbs rasping against her nipples, and she gasped at the sensation. He followed the curves of her body to grasp her hips and hold her more tightly against him, rocking upwards into her. Finally, the waves of sensation overtook him and he gasped and felt the world stop for a long second before he came, his hips rocking upwards against hers.

Later that night, as the fire dwindled to embers, it was Natasha's turn to lie on her back, one hand caught in Clint's hair, the other thrown over her head in abandon. Clint lay between her legs, exploring her delicately with fingers and tongue so leisurely that she squirmed, her body coiled like a spring.

"You're so beautiful, Nat," he murmured into her skin. He stroked into her more deeply, his mouth insistent.

"Clint...I can't...god…"

He understood her perfectly, covering her clit with his mouth and sucking gently as his fingers moved more quickly. She bucked against him, her mouth open in a silent cry. He rested his cheek against the inside of her thigh as she slowly came down, breathing her in, amazed that he had been allowed to see her so unguarded.

Still later that night, Clint introduced Natasha to the reason he had picked this particular farmhouse: a completely modern and very over the top bathroom, complete with a giant shower equipped with a particularly sturdy bench underneath a rainfall showerhead. After they had exhausted the capabilities of a very big hot water heater, he had wrapped her in a giant fluffy towel and toted her to the bedroom. Underneath an eiderdown, the two of them curled up together.

"Why Clint," murmured Natasha drowsily. "I thought you hated cozy domesticity."

He brushed her hair out of the way so he could kiss her temple. "Some of that may have been a macho pose."

She snorted, then snuggled deeper into his arms.

"Wait, 'Tasha...don't go to sleep just yet."

"Mmmm?"

He leaned back and picked up a rectangular box covered in marbled paper off the nightstand behind him, and presented it to her. "Here, open this."

She pushed back a wing of hair and studied him for a moment, then lifted the lid of the box. Inside was an ornate iron key with a tag attached with ribbon. She read,

"'Palazzo Morosina, Piano quattro, appartamento B.' Clint, what is this?"

"So I couldn't get you a whole palazzo to yourself...they're really expensive, turns out. But there's an apartment on the fourth floor of one that was available...and it has a really nice chandelier. No private gondola, though. I thought that little vase might look good in it?"

She was quiet for so long that Clint began to panic, certain he had overstepped a boundary and was about to be thrown out into the snow. But when she looked up at him, he let out the breath he was holding in relief, because her face was shining.

"You continue to surprise me, Agent Barton."

"Yeah, well…" he cupped her cheek and kissed her softly. "I want to see you in that goofy apron again. If it takes getting you another Venetian apartment, I figure it's worth it."

"That goofy apron is probably in a SHIELD evidence locker. I'll have to get a new one. Or we can go see if May will release it back to me."

She curled up inside the circle of his arms, her cheek against his chest. After a few long moments of silence, the two of them fell asleep, the key warm in Natasha's hands.


End file.
